Content posted by Joelle Panisch

Director Vicki Abeles turns the personal political, igniting a national conversation in her new documentary about the pressures faced by American school children and their teachers in a system and culture obsessed with the illusion of achievement, competition and the pressure to perform. Check it out Thursday, January 13 at the 92Y in Tribeca!

For rent-regulated New Yorkers, money and legal actions have become the weapons of choice used by slumlords -- using the courts to evict them as part of a systematic plan to eviscerate affordable housing in Manhattan. By retaining expensive landlord-tenant lawyers or through politically expedient campaign contributions, wealthy landlords (those with many properties) have deep pockets and are willing to invest large sums dedicated to systematic plans of evicting stabilized and rent-controlled tenants. It is unethical, often illegal, and it works.

No one will ever question our loyalty and our life long love with SoHo, not only as a neighborhood but as a frame of mind as well. We long for the days when it was the wild, wild south and artists roamed the cobble stone streets and lived and worked in huge open spaces left for dead by defunct factories. Slowly the galleries followed the artists and then restaurants followed the galleries and the folks with money followed the restaurants and the stores followed the folks with money and soon the artists were gone and all that remains are our warm memories of a time gone by.

It’s true that oil from BPs Deepwater Horizon fiasco is still sticking to and covering parts of the sea floor for some 80 miles or more around the site of the now-capped well. In early September, researchers from the University of Georgia found oil some two inches thick on the sea floor as far as 80 miles away from the source of the leak, with a layer of dead shrimp and other small animals under it.

Cynics say that money talks; realists would be wise to agree. For rent-regulated New Yorkers, money has become the strongest weapon used against them by unethical landlords that trying to evict them hoping to re-rent their apartment at market rate.

Water is such an important part of life that it has long been regarded as a public good worth entrusting only to public entities. But given the mixed track record of municipal, regional and national governments to properly manage water resources, outsourcing to private companies is becoming more common. But critics of such privatization point out that the end result for consumers is not always so positive.

“On bicycle tours I would come across cars just standing there in the countryside. I guess my first reaction was to look out for the owners. Most of the time, I would see no one and thus was left alone with the situation, developing a relationship to those vehicles that I hadn’t expected. From then on I started to regard these abandoned cars in the scenery as if they were actors on a stage and started to collect their wit and tragedy.”

Eric Schneiderman believes in progressive justice that takes an activist approach to protecting the rights of all New Yorkers. A longtime leader in the fight to ensure equal rights for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender community in New York State, Eric believes that no one should be denied civil rights on the basis of their sexual orientation or identity.

New York Yankees Manager Joe Girardi will join Elizabeth H. Berger, President of the Alliance for Downtown New York, to unveil a black granite strip commemorating last fall’s ticker-tape parade for the 2009 World Series champions. Surrounding them will be a dozen members of the Downtown Little League Yankees.

“Lower Manhattan is already swarmed with tour buses that often park illegally, idle, or snare traffic. The opening of the 9/11 Memorial next year will turn this serious problem into a full-fledged crisis unless we implement a solution now. Regulating tour bus traffic to require the use of PATH stations and excess parking space across the river will alleviate the traffic burden in Lower Manhattan, while offering tourists a convenient path to the Memorial and other attractions across the city.”